Day 4 - IFA International

Special Feature The

Special Feature The Nomadic Revolution The tablets are working for Archos New range offers variety and style, at an attractive price The new range of Archos Internet tablets offers a broad variety of models including the palm-sized 28IT, which has a 4Gb capacity and a 2.8- inch screen. The rest of the range, from the 32IT through to the 101IT includes either a camera or a webcam and eight- or 16GB capacity. The entire range operates on Android 2.2 and all have USB and micro-USB ports. The new series is competitively priced starting at € 99 for the 28IT – a powerful psychological price point – up to €299 for the top of the range 101 which has a high-resolution 10.1-inch screen and weighs a very light 480g. The design is also attractive, with the largest model a mere 12mm thick. It also comes with Adobe Flash 10, an accelerometer and a high-speed wi-fi connection for the optimum browsing experience – and enough processing power for the to be a genuine alternative to a PC. There is also an app that allows for personalisation of the range. Users just have to tap the Appslib icon on the home screen of the internet tablet to discover a wide choice of Android apps. The 101IT also has an HDMI connection (HDMI cable sold separately), which means that users can have the Android interface on your TV screen. This enables them to play games on TV, with the device becoming the gamepad. In addition, if you are sharing your photos and videos with a room full of people on a TV, you can show high definition images that are remarkably crisp. The device also offers a rich and varied multimedia experience in HD quality, and plays all music, video, and photo formats. The Archos 101 internet tablet has a new music and videow application with 3D illustrated library interface, and the ability to add a widget to the home screen, allowing users to control their music and video at any time. Hall 15 Stand 113 The Archos 101 Internet Tablet 30

Special Feature The Nomadic Revolution iriver eyes Europe’s academic e-reader market Korean multimedia manufacturer looks to replace textbooks and to make life easier for the world's school children. Hauling around a heavy bag full of clunky revision books is part of the ritual every school child and student has to go through. Some would say the reliance on such paper-based materials is an anomaly in today’s digital age. If iriver CEO Jae Woo Lee achieves his aims, the students of the not so distant future will soon be swapping heavy textbooks for a single iriver e-book. “This is clearly our goal. The textbooks that kids have to carry are really heavy and big, and we are looking at a way of replacing them,” Mr Lee said. “We want to develop a product that can be used for academic purposes, replacing text books.” Mr Lee believes that the e-reader is the product to take digital book reading to a mass audience. “I think the biggest strength of the e-reader, in comparison with the LCD-based tablet PC or the iPad, is that you can comfortably read it for longer periods of time,” he said. “The battery lasts much, much longer. Our product can last for 9,000 pages. The other advantage is mobility. The e-reader is much lighter for reading books [in comparison to the iPads] and is also more durable.” The South Korea-based multimedia device manufacturer, recently launched a wi-fi version of its iriver Story eBook Reader in the UK, in a joint-venture with WHSmith, the British retailer – after launching the product late last year to attract Christmas shoppers. iriver has its sights firmly set on the European market, with a focus on Switzerland for new product launches. Mr Lee said that Europe, does not have a dominant player in the e-reader space – unlike the US which has Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others. “We believe the e-reader market [in Europe] is a little less crowded. We want to be a market-leader and we think there is a good possibility for this. After the advent of the iPad, a lot of people are now looking for iPad-type products.” iriver has plans to launch MP3 and MP4 products in Europe after already successfully rolling out product offerings in this space in Korea. “Korea is being called a test bed for new products. We are at the stage where we can maybe branch out outside Korea,” he said. Mr Lee says a roadmap for the delivery of multimedia network terminals has also been devised and iriver has held talks with European and Canadian telecom companies, after its successful joint venture with Korean telecom operator KT. “Technically we could do it but it is all about resource allocation” he said. Earlier in the summer, iriver announced plans to establish an e-Book jointventure with LG Display, a leading innovator of thinfilm transistor liquid crystal Jae Woo Lee, CEO of iriver display and electronic paper display technology. The joint-venture, L&I Electronic Technology, has a production goal of one million units a year by 2011. Mr Lee is confident that the joint-venture will be a success, pin-pointing price, size, colour adaptability and durability as the key factors which will differentiate the devices from offerings produced by rivals such as Sony and Samsung. A new product with a 9.7-inch colour display screen is on the drawing board, with a planned project launch for the first quarter of 2011. “We are looking to make this product more responsive to users. I don’t think we can compete with the interactivity of iPad-type products. But among the EPD-based e-readers we want to be the most flexible. The most user-friendly for reading books, with a long battery time going down” he said. Hall 17 Stand 125 www.ifa-international.org IFAInternational • Monday, 6 th September 2010 31